SOCIAL

'Gays should sit at the back' says former Poland president

Lech Walesa, Poland's president from 1990 to 1995, wants gay MPs to sit in the back of the parliament chamber

3 March 2013

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Poland’s former president believes gay MPs to sit in the back of the room in Parliament, or ‘behind a wall’.

According to Polskie Radio, Lech Walesa was expressing his views on same-sex civil partnerships in Poland when he went on a homophobic tangent.

‘Homosexuals should sit on the last bench in the plenary hall, or even behind the wall, and not somewhere at the front,’ said the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

He added: ‘A minority can not impose itself on the majority. They must know they are a minority and adapt themselves to smaller things’.

Walesa also commented that he would not have voted for Anna Grodzka, Parliament’s deputy speaker elected in January and Europe’s only transexual MP.

Poland’s first openly gay MP, Robert Biedron, told a TVN journalist that while he loves Walesa for his advocacy work, he believes Walesa needs a talking to about civil partnerships and IVF.

The ruling Civic Platform party is currently split on its position regarding civil partnerships as Poland does not legally acknowledge or protect same-sex couples.

At the end of January this year, three different civil partnership bills were re-introduced even after Parliament rejected the first draft legislation. All three versions of the bill emphasize the need for civil partnerships for gay and straight couples.